A Little Truth About My Vocals & Auto-Tune

When I first started recording my own music, I relied heavily on Auto-Tune and Auto-Pitch. At times I was pushing the correction beyond 90% because I believed that the more correction I used, the cleaner and more professional my vocals would sound.

Experience taught me something different. Too much correction was taking away some of the natural character of my voice. As I developed as a recording artist, I gradually reduced it. These days the amount I use depends on the song and the sound I am trying to achieve, but it is normally much lighter — around 20–27% on many of my recordings.

Pitch correction is a tool. It should support the performance, not become the performance.

I do not claim to have perfect pitch. A major part of my development has therefore been practising: learning to control my breathing, getting closer to the notes before recording, improving my delivery and trying to capture the strongest performance before I reach for a plug-in.

My aim is not to remove every imperfection. I want the recording to retain my voice and personality, then use production to enhance what is already there rather than completely reshape it.

The biggest lesson has been simple: get the performance right first and let the technology polish it afterwards. I am still learning, still experimenting and still improving with every track.